CHAPTER VI

VIA OSCURA

The day that followed this quiet dawn marked the meridian of spring. Thereafter the flush upon the blossoms would deepen; the yellow pass out of the green; and a deeper green involve the shoreless emerald sea of verdure which everywhere covered the brown earth, and swelled and lapsed in endlessly receding billows of forest and woodland. Up to that noon-tide height Spring had aspired, ever since she had shaken the dust of snow from her primrose-sandals; now, looking upon the way she had come, she took the hand of Summer--and both went forth as one, so that none should tell which was still the guest of the greenness.

This was the day when Alan and Ynys walked among the green alleys of the woods of Kerival, and when, through the deep gladness that was his for all the strange, gnawing pain in his mind, in his ears echoed the haunting line of Rimbaud, "Then, in the violet forest all a-bourgeon, Eucharis said to me: 'It is Spring.'"

Through the first hours of the day Alan had been unwontedly silent. Ynys had laughed at him with loving eyes, but had not shown any shadow of resentment. His word to the effect that his journey had tired him, and that he had not slept at all, was enough to account for his lack of buoyant joy.

But, in truth, Ynys did not regret this, since it had brought a still deeper intensity of love into Alan's eyes. When he looked at her, there was so much passion of longing, so pathetic an appeal, that her heart smote her. Why should she be the one chosen to evoke a love such as this, she wondered; she, who was but Ynys, while Alan was a man whom all women might love, and had genius that made him as one set apart from his fellows, and was brow-lit by a starry fate?

And yet, in a sense she understood. They were so much at one, so like in all essential matters, and were in all ways comrades. It would have been impossible for each not to love the other. But, deeper than this, was the profound and intimate communion of the spirit. In some beautiful, strange way, she knew she was the flame to his fire. At that flame he lit the torch of which Daniel Darc and others had spoken. She did not see why or wherein it was so, but she believed, and indeed at last realized the exquisite actuality.

In deep love, there is no height nor depth between two hearts, no height nor depth, no length nor breadth. There is simply love.

The birds of Angus Ogue are like the wild-doves of the forest: when they nest in the heart they are as one. And her life, and Alan's, were not these one?

Nevertheless, Ynys was disappointed as the day went on, and her lover did not seem able to rouse himself from his strange despondency.

Doubtless this was due largely to what was pending. That afternoon he was to have his long anticipated interview with the Marquise, and would perhaps learn what might affect his whole life. On the other hand, each believed that nothing would be revealed which was not of the past solely.

Idly, Ynys began to question her companion about the previous night. What had he done, since he had not slept; had he read, or dreamed at the window, or gone out, as had once been his wont on summer nights, to walk in the cypress alley or along the grassy dunes? Had he heard a nightingale singing in the moonlight? Had he noticed the prolonged screaming of the peacocks--unusually prolonged, now that she thought of it, Ynys added.

"I wonder, dear, if you would love me whatever happened--whatever I was, or did?"

It was an inconsequent question. She looked up at him, half perturbed, half pleased.

"Yes, Alan."

"But do you mean what you say, knowing that you are not only using a phrase?"

"I have no gift of expression, dearest. Words come to me without their bloom and their fragrance, I often think. But ... Alan, _I love you_."

"That is sweetest music for me, Ynys, my fawn. All words from you have both bloom and fragrance, though you may not know it, shy flower. But tell me again, do you mean what you say, _absolutely_?"

"Absolutely. In every way, in all things, at all times. Dear, how could _any thing_ come between us? It is _possible_, of course, that circumstances might separate us. But nothing could really come between us. My heart is yours."

"What about Andrik de Morvan?"

"Ah, you are not in earnest, Alan!"

"Yes; I am more than half in earnest, Ynys, darling. Tell me!"

"You cannot possibly believe that I care, that I could care, for Andrik as I care for you, Alan."

"Why not?"

"Why not? Oh, have you so little belief, then, in women--in me? Alan, do you not know that what is perhaps possible for a man, though I cannot conceive it, is _impossible_ for a woman. That is the poorest sophistry which says a woman may love two men at the same time. That is, if by love is meant what you and I mean. Affection, the deepest affection, is one thing; the love of man and woman, as _we_ mean it, is a thing apart!"

"You love Andrik?"

"Yes."

"Could you wed your life with his?"

"I could have done so ... but for you."

"Then, by your true heart, is there no possibility that he can in any way ever come between us?"

"None."

"Although he is nominally your betrothed, and believes in you as his future wife?"

"That is not my fault. I drifted into that conditional union, as you know. But after to-day he and every one shall know that I can wed no man but you. But why do you ask me these things, Alan?"

"I want to know. I will explain later. But tell me; could you be happy with Andrik? You say you love him?"

"I love him as a friend, as a comrade."

"As an intimately dear comrade?"

"Alan, do not let us misunderstand each other. There can only be one supreme comrade for a woman, and that is the man whom she loves supremely. Every other affection, the closest, the dearest, is as distinct from that as day from night."

"If by some malign chance you and Andrik married--say, in the event of my supposed death--would you still be as absolutely true to me as you are now?"

"What has the accident of marriage to do with truth between a man and a woman, Alan?"

"It involves intimacies that would be a desecration otherwise. Oh, Ynys, do you not understand?"

"It is a matter of the inner life. Men so rarely believe in the hidden loyalty of the heart. It is possible for a woman to fulfil a bond and yet not be a bondswoman. Outer circumstances have little to do with the inner life, with the real self."

"In a word, then, if you married Andrik you would remain absolutely mine, not only if I were dead, but if perchance the rumor were untrue and I came back, though too late?"

"Yes."

"Absolutely?"

"Absolutely."

"And you profoundly know, Ynys, that in no conceivable circumstances can Andrik be to you what I am, or any thing for a moment approaching it?"

"I do know it."

"Although he were your husband?"

"Although he were my husband."

The worn lines that were in Alan's face were almost gone. Looking into his eyes Ynys saw that the strange look of pain which had alarmed her was no longer there. The dear eyes had brightened; a new hope seemed to have arisen in them.

"Do you believe me, Alan, dear?" she whispered.

"If I did not, it would kill me, Ynys."

And he spoke truth. The bitter sophistications of love play lightly with the possibilities of death. Men who talk of suicide are likely to be long-livers; lovers whose hearts are easily broken can generally recover and astonish themselves by their heroic endurance. The human heart is like a wave of the sea; it can be lashed into storm, it can be calmed, it can become stagnant--but it is seldom absorbed from the ocean till in natural course the sun takes up its spirit in vapor. Yet, ever and again, there is one wave among a myriad which a spiral wind-eddy may suddenly strike. In a moment it is whirled this way and that; it is involved in a cataclysm of waters; and then cloud and sea meet, and what a moment before had been an ocean wave is become an idle skyey vapor.

Alan was of the few men of whom that wave is the symbol. To him, death could come at any time, if the wind-eddy of a certain unthinkable sorrow struck him at his heart.

In this sense, his life was in Ynys's hands as absolutely as though he were a caged bird. He knew it, and Ynys knew it.

There are a few men, a few women, like this. Perhaps it is well that these are so rare. Among the hills of the north, at least, they may still be found; in remote mountain valleys and in lonely isles, where life and death are realized actualities and not the mere adumbrations of the pinions of that lonely fugitive, the human mind, along the endless precipices of Time.

Alan knew well that both he and Ynys were not so strong as each believed. Knowing this, he feared for both. And yet, there was but one woman in the world for him--Ynys; as for her, there was but one man--Alan. Without her, he could do nothing, achieve nothing. She was his flame, his inspiration, his strength, his light. Without her, he was afraid to live; with her, death was a beautiful dream. To her, Alan was not less. She lived in him and for him.

But we are wrought of marsh-fire as well as of stellar light. Now, as of old, the gods do not make of the fairest life a thornless rose. A single thorn may innocently convey poison; so that everywhere men and women go to and fro perilously, and not least those who move through the shadow and shine of an imperious passion.

For a time, thereafter, Alan and Ynys walked slowly onward, hand in hand, each brooding deep over the thoughts their words had stirred.

"Do you know what Yann says, Alan?" Ynys asked in a low voice, after both had stopped instinctively to listen to a thrush leisurely iterating his just learned love carol, where he swung on a greening spray of honeysuckle under a yellow-green lime. "Do you know what Yann says?... He says that you have a wave at your feet. What does that mean?"

"When did he tell you that, Ynys, mo-chree?"

"Ah, Alan, dear, how sweet it is to hear from your lips the dear Gaelic we both love so well! And does that not make you more than ever anxious to learn all that you are to hear this afternoon?"

"Yes ... but that, that Ian Macdonald said; what else did he say?"

"Nothing. He would say no more. I asked him in the Gaelic, and he repeated only, 'I see a wave at his feet.'"

"What Ian means by that I know well. It means I am going on a far journey."

"Oh, no, Alan, no!"

"He has the sight upon him, at times. Ian would not say that thing, did he not mean it. Tell me, my fawn, has he ever said any thing of this kind about _you_?"

"Yes. Less than a month ago. I was with him one day on the dunes near the sea. Once, when he gave no answer to what I asked, I looked at him, and saw his eyes fixt. 'What do you see, Yann?' I asked.

"'I see great rocks, strange caverns. Sure, it is well I am knowing what they are. They are the Sea-caves of Rona.'

"There were no rocks visible from where we stood, so I knew that Ian was in one of his visionary moods. I waited, and then spoke again, whisperingly:

"'Tell me, Ian MacIain, what do you see?'

"'I see two whom I do not know. And they are in a strange place, they are. And on the man I see a shadow, and on the woman I see a light. But what that shadow is, I do not know; nor do I know what that light is. But I am for thinking that it is of the Virgin Mary, for I see the dream that is in the woman's heart, and it is a fair wonderful dream _that_.'

"That is all Yann said, Alan. As I was about to speak, his face changed.

"'What is it, Ian?' I asked.

"At first he would answer nothing. Then he said: 'It is a dream. It means nothing. It was only because I was thinking of you and Alan MacAlasdair.'"

"Oh, Ynys!"--Alan interrupted with an eager cry--"that is a thing I have long striven to know; that which lies in the words 'Alan MacAlasdair.' My father, then, was named Alasdair! And was it Rona, you said, was the place of the Sea-caves? Rona ... that must be an island. The only Rona I know of is that near Skye. It may be the same. Now, indeed, I have a clew, lest I should learn nothing to-day. Did Ian say nothing more?"

"Nothing. I asked him if the man and woman he saw were you and I, but he would not speak. I am certain he was about to say yes, but refrained."

For a while they walked on in silence, each revolving many speculations aroused by the clew given by the words of "Yann the Dumb." Suddenly Ynys tightened her clasp of Alan's hand.

"What is it, dear?"

"Alan, some time ago you asked me abruptly what I knew about the forester, Judik Kerbastiou. Well, I see him in that beech-covert yonder, looking at us."

Alan started. Ynys noticed that for a moment he grew pale as foam. His lips parted, as though he were about to call to the woodlander: when Judik advanced, making at the same time a sign of silence.

The man had a wild look about him. Clearly, he had not slept since he and Alan had parted at midnight. His dusky eyes had a red light in them. His rough clothes were still damp; his face, too, was strangely white and dank.

Alan presumed that he came to say something concerning Annaik. He did not know what to do to prevent this, but while he was pondering, Judik spoke in a hoarse, tired voice:

"Let the Lady Ynys go back to the château at once. She is needed there."

"Why, what is wrong, Judik Kerbastiou?"

"Let her go back, I say. No time for words now. Be quick. I am not deceiving you. Listen ..." and with that he leaned toward Alan, and whispered in his ear.

Alan looked at him with startled amaze. Then, turning toward Ynys, he asked her to go back at once to the château.